Okay, Constance started this over at FB.

“Dick and I are playing this game, since we like puns, where you think of an occupation, and then add a word with a negative prefix that pertains. So, the Duke was disgraced. The seismologist defaulted. Etc.” Then she added, “The tanner who was dis-suaded. The hair stylist who was dis-tressed. The judge who was ex-honor-ated.

So, the gambler was deluxe doesn’t quite do it. The appliance salesman was deranged; that’s better. The English professor was denounced and (oh who cares about rules when there are puns to be had) de-vowel-you’d–my family would approve.

It seems to be easier to come up with the punchline and take it back-word from there.  Anyone else want to try? So far I’ve come up with:

The chef was served with a deflammation suit.

The campers were given detention.

The math homework (blame the dog) was dissolved and the professor was outnumbered.

(This one is NOT political, it’s all wordplay.) The det o’ nation was way overblown.

The writer was in-dis-pens-able.

They tried to talk about their ancestors, but it just de-gen-irate’d from there. Which leads to,

Oedipus said it’s true, you can’t go home again; it’s dilapidated now.

And on a totally different note, they’re not my pictures and I respect copyright so I’ll just link to them, but my cousin Kathryn’s daughter waited till the moment of a family photoshoot to give her mom the big news. Happy day!

A thank you to all who checked in as to how things are where you are; it’s good to hear you all did okay. Hurricanes are random acts of velocity.

Here, the baking binge continued, and as I chopped and sliced and got out the cheater store-bought no-dairy crust from the back of the freezer (uh oh, I’ve disillusioned Scott‘s whole family now) I thought of how my mother always thought of dessert as one last attempt to get good nutrition into her kids.

So enough with the chocolate for a moment. It’s all about the fruit. We were on our second helpings of rhubarb  strawberry pie when suddenly I looked up at my husband and said, “Oh. I was going to photograph this for the blog.”

The general consensus here is that I could always, definitely go make another one.

———

This took less than five minutes to get into the oven.

Recipe: Have a bottom crust ready.

Slice rhubarb (I had three+ cups’ worth) and strawberries to bring it to four cups. Mix 1/3 c flour with 1 1/3 c sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon; pour in the fruit, add to crust. (And yes, Scott, I forgot to prick it again. Must have been the strawberries. Some things never change.)

Halfway through you might want to open the oven quickly and dunk the top fruit down so that any flour mixture sitting exposed goes in the goo.

I baked it at 425 for 40 minutes, and then because it was a cheap shiny store-bought throwaway tin had to add another five at 350. Next time I might turn it down after the first ten min like another of my cookbooks says so the outer edges won’t burn; personally, I chuckled at being able to toss some of the empty-calories part of the pie, just enough to free it from guilt. And the rest of the crust had the most perfect crunch.

Jury duty: still doing the check in at 11 am/check back at 5 pm thing. Almost done.

May I just say that, re the instructions on the summons, requiring people who need to ask for closed captions in the court to request it not online but rather to call for it is, um, kinda missing something there. Yo?

Meantime, my childhood friend corrected herself as new messages got through: her son’s house near the epicenter in Virginia is standing, it’s his neighbor’s around the corner that’s down. He’s waiting for a structural report to find out if his is safe to go in.

I needed something intense to work on. I printed out some lace instructions I’d worked out on paper a year ago but had never spent the hours to actually knit through it and make sure it worked.

Hey.  So I grabbed some baby alpaca that had been in the stash for quite awhile, not quite my shade of blue–and yet somehow the moment I saw it it was the most beautiful one ever to my eyes. Oooh, that one! Yes!

Curious. That has always come to mean that it’s needing to go somewhere in particular that I don’t know about yet. Every color is someone’s favorite.

And on a side note: when you have a complicated pattern you’re trying for the first time? A solid color helps the eyes read the stitches a whole lot easier. And so (having learned that, and ignoring that beseeching handpaint over there), this is.

(And one last picture of us holding Parker while he was here.)

Just a week ago my husband reminded me that our old family-size tent had given up the ghost a number of years ago, the fabric aged and damaged and the thing unusable. It was bothering him that we weren’t prepared. He was thinking we should replace it in case we might, as we eventually will, have another big earthquake.

We looked at models, prices, talked budget. He knew I’d like an Ipad, which is a total toy (Don you old sweetheart don’t you even THINK about it!) A tent, on the other hand, we would hopefully never need to use (my camping days are over), but if we did need one, it would be so far from a frivolous thing. Got to keep those ravenous squirrels away from my millet-hull pillow.

Tent wins.

One thing that I read today said, “East Coast freaks, West Coast rolls its eyes”; 5.9 didn’t sound like all that much over here.

Different geological structures have different effects, though; ask anyone living in a liquifaction zone in California–we’re close to one but I think we’re okay, knock on rock.

Someone I grew up with, (Mom and Dad, that’s Ky), has a son living in Louisa, Virginia. His house is gone. Reading her note today, I was at first quite surprised–that’s real damage, not just a traffic jam.

But then I remembered that when we had our big earthquake, no news came out of the mountainous epicenter area for days because reporters couldn’t get in and phones there were down. The only mention of the Loma Prieta area in the news was from the USGS’s reports that gave the quake its name.

My husband’s aunt–who knew Ky as a small child–lived a half mile from that epicenter and her house was heavily damaged; her neighbor pulled into his driveway in time to see his three-story home collapse before his eyes, with, as it turned out, the two inside escaping harm because when the mom had called the teen moments earlier to come help cook dinner, the kid had come–joining her in the only room that turned out to be safe.

Do what your mom tells you.

I wonder what news reports will start trickling out of Louisa now, too.

But we had no way to know back then how the aunt’s family was, and her aged mother in Washington DC, dialing all night, called at 4 am our time to ask if we knew anything: she’d finally gotten through at least to us, but we too had heard nothing yet. (It was quite the experience, but they were okay.)

That did it. He’d been thinking of it for some time. My husband got his ham radio license right after that.  He has ever since volunteered with the city, the county, and the Red Cross doing disaster services and emergency communications drills. He’s done a lot of good with it: because, once upon a time, there was an earthquake and people we loved were unaccounted for and maybe hurt.

And he never again wanted to be unable to know and unable to help.

Church was long when you’re not quite two and the usually very cheerful little guy had had enough. It was over but his parents were still busy talking to their friends.

After he ran halfway across the foyer, I’m not quite sure whether he tripped or threw himself on the floor; I caught the motion out of my peripheral vision.

He let out a loud yowl of declaration for extra effect.

I went over to him from his oncoming direction, got down on all fours, and leaned my head down towards him with a curious grin. He was turned away but suddenly he bounced his up high like a sphinx, he grinned the biggest grin at me as if glad someone was in on the joke with him, then he leaped into the air with a happy dance and ran to his mommy.

I guess church turned out not quite so long after all.

The doorbell rang. Huh, too early for the mailman, I ran to open it to see–Cliff! Don’s son, with Don sitting on the passenger side of his car at the curb in front of the house waving a happy hello. Cliff, meantime, was pulling a really nice nonstick springform pan out of a bag, grinning as I about died with laughter, my jaw on the ground at the same time with a speechless, you didn’t…! And then he pulled out another.

I gave him a hug and a heartfelt thank you, then ran to Don and he got his hug too and I told him, “You’re wonderful, you’re terrible!,” laughing.

“Well, I have to have my cake!” he laughed back.

Much nicer pans than my old ones, and let’s see, we’re out of butter, fix that, okay, and I put them right to use and emailed Don that I hoped I wasn’t jinxing it again, but…

Right. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

But it worked, because of course new pans deserve that and so do Don and Cliff. Who now have two chocolate tortes by way of a thank you; the pans almost handwashed themselves, they were that easy, not that you have to but I’m going to. I want them to stay as perfect as the gift they are.

An aside to them: I didn’t put plastic wrap over the tortes because they were too new and the glaze hadn’t finished setting in the fridge yet (but it was getting late); the plastic can pull and mar the surface when you take it off if it’s put on too soon, before it completely sets.

Like anyone would mind. Thank you! Enjoy!

I’m sure going to!

I saw the dermatologist again: two new spots on my head. They looked to her like an autoimmune reaction to the surgery, but she made sure I did indeed have an appointment for four months post-op on the skin cancer. I do. Meantime, though, she was relieved and I was too.

She mentioned that a friend of hers had knit baby blankets for her two children when they were born and they loved them; she marveled that her five-year-old was still so latched onto his.

I loved hearing that some other knitter’s work was so prized by that good woman’s children.  What better could one ask for?

And so I came home wanting to celebrate all around. Hey. I’d found some manufacturing cream actually in stock yesterday and bought it; I owed Don a chocolate torte, I could drop one off at his house on my way to Knit Night if I hurried.

Um.

The original incarnation of my recipe is dated June 1991. My pair of 8″ springform pans has been well used for a long time.

And they’re showing it. The latch on one is a little loose, the other, more than a little and it’s leaked a bit a few times; I try to make sure the foil lining on the bottom comes up and covers that join.

Nuts, I forgot to do that this time, I thought a little later as I started to smell smoke; I really should spring for those new pans. Oh well, open the oven a crack for a moment to keep the cakes from tasting smokey and hope it burns off fast.

Okay, this is where I’m glad I had my hair pulled back.

Waiiiit… Try that again…

Slam it shut.

NOW what do I do?!! The one torte, if I had an oven free that I could… Are the neighbors home? Right, ‘scuse me, could I borrow a cup of 350 degrees for 25 minutes?

Take a deep breath. (No don’t.) Turn the oven off.  Be glad the smoke alarm system has a timer so you can turn it off for 25 minutes. Hope the mailman going by doesn’t call 911. Take the good cake out. Move the racks. Acknowledge to myself that yes, I really did do that: I put a springform pan in the oven without closing the latch.

And yet half that torte was still somehow in the pan. I poured the unset part of the batter into bowls and nuked its sorry remains. The other torte had to sit on the counter and cool its heels while I scraped and scraped the oven out with a metal spatula (no don’t reach for the nylon one!) and then reheated it, opening it again and again to let more smoke out, waited some more, okay, try again.

I sent up a silent ‘Thank you Larrick Hill’, our architect on the remodel 16 years ago, for the screened open-able skylight he put in this kitchen that even when it’s opened still keeps most of the direct sun away from me. Up, smoke, up. No, mailman…

It was a total guess how long to bake the behaved one.  Note that neither of us who can eat dairy have ventured to cut into it yet, much less waste a ganache glaze on it.

But that happy email to Don in between baking steps around the kitchen about dropping off a torte on my way to Knit Night? That was a half-baked idea. Maybe next round?

(With a Parker picture courtesy of my son.)

I was reading an unexpected message from a friend and had one of those moments of utter clarity: a thought I had not expected instantly felt not just right but compelling.

That teal-green Madeline Tosh yarn given me last Thursday by a mystery someone. It is, I suddenly realized as I read that note, exactly the color of… she would know why…

That’s about as much as I can say right now, other than, although I had yarns in my stash close to it, I didn’t have one that was exactly THE shade, but that one was. Perfect pitch.

Colors are so evocative of memories. Someone I know needs the balance of remembering better times and to feel someone cares, softness in the precise color of a hug, yes!

I just want the person who gave me that yarn to know that they picked out something exactly, totally perfect just when, though I did not know it yet, it was going to be needed.

And they gave me the push forward by making that color’s physical presence real to me to make it actually happen. Okay, hang on, let me get back to work on this, I’ve got about six more hours to go…

You may remember this from a few weeks ago. There was one more reason that I didn’t say there why I was so angry at them.

I was still angry the next day. This had to stop. It felt imperative that I take that stress and put it on the shoulders where it belonged so that actual changes for the better could happen, and so I googled, found the name of the chief medical officer, printed out my words from that blog post and slapped a Forever stamp on it and felt, walking away from my mailbox, like the world had been lifted off me.

But before I put it out there, I dithered, I thought, I decided that, no, they need to know; I didn’t put in any details, hey, let them go look it up. I’m sure they did.

I added that a medical error there had widowed G years before.

I did not say a stunning, egregious error that made me gasp out loud when I heard what they’d done–that any reasonable person, medical background or not, would too.

They weren’t going to take my friend G away from me too.

G got a phone call from that chief medical officer: an abject apology and a concern for her well-being and a promise to look into their procedures. Then, “I got a call from Sacramento!” G laughed; she told me of her initial confusion at being told a grievance had been filed. She knew she hadn’t.

“No, it was filed on your behalf,” they said, and she told me, “I knew instantly who had done it.” She thanked me, wondering out loud if she shouldn’t have done so herself.

But she’s a nice person who doesn’t like to complain.

I’m a nice person who doesn’t like to complain.

But I sure can if my friends need me to stick up for them. It was so necessary.  She told them that day that she had not just me but two other people lined up in advance in case there was any problem, but they would have none of it. She was bullied that day.

And I was paying it forward for all of you who bombarded Caremark when they refused to process my Humira prescription with life in the balance two years ago; thank you forever for that.

“They all came back clear!” All the biopsies. All the worry.  And now she is finally free to go ahead and have the other surgery that will make her well.

At Kaiser.

Some may remember how, back when my lupus was new and my children small, back when my friend Lisa offered to trade a few hours’ babysitting time every morning, swim therapy for me and then gym time for her, how her little boy David used to leave some favored object, usually a toy, stashed away somewhere in my house every time to make sure he’d have to come back to get it. Somewhere where I wouldn’t see it and go chasing after their car, somewhere where only he would know.

Every time. I think he started doing that before he turned three.

Richard, Kim, and Parker flew home this afternoon.

And David’s going to love seeing what we found after they left.

I don’t know whom to thank, so thank you to all of you out there.

I was at Purlescence tonight when Nathania got that sneaky grin thing happening again: she was clearly very very pleased at what was just about to happen and at the fact that I had no idea. And then she got to watch my face go: But, but—!

Totally nonpsychodegradeable. Wow.

Now, I just looked back through my posts–when I talked about that shawlette start that needed to be frogged? The one that the color had been so perfect, but the texture, not so much? That got me to grab the Whales Road Malabrigo for the softness? (That project’s now at the stage where I could either cast off the very next thing or maybe continue for one more repeat.)

Somebody… Nathania said, “I know nothing. I don’t know who, I don’t know how, I don’t know when it was put in this basket to wait for you.” (I would not be surprised if the other owners of Purlescence conspired to keep it that way till after she’d given it to me.)

But my name was written on a skein of Madeleine Tosh fingering weight she was lifting out of that basket to hand to me.

The same weight as the sock yarn I’d deemed too strong a twist, designed to withstand sockitude, not quiet shawlitude.

So soft.

The very same color.

I never blogged the color that was so perfect but that the yarn just hadn’t worked for what I’d wanted. But someone nailed it.

I’ve never in my life bought a skein of Madeline Tosh; I’ve picked up many of them, petted them, then put them regretfully back, thinking, next time maybe.

And now I have some MadTosh softness at last.  I love that their website has a little image of a bird up by their URL. I love the Cousteau name for the color. I love the yarn. I love the thoughtfulness and the generosity and the challenge to try to live up to that. Thank you whoever you are, thank you all of you, thank you Universe and thank you Purlescence for enabling the culprit, and with so much happiness.

Wow.

Let’s see if I can get myself to put this knitting down a moment. That Whales Road yarn demanded to be ended in the jellyfish motif from the Monterey shawl and I really really like how it’s coming out.

Meantime, (and I found I needed to work on a more mindless project during the process), the piano is tuned, ready for my son who minored in organ performance to come home to on Friday.

My friend who tuned it today, who volunteers doing wetlands restoration work, took the time first to stop and admire quite the flock going on just outside the window.  He told me about some of his and his wife’s birdwatching. He asked if I were trying to attract a specific kind with a specific seed; I told him not really, but I do avoid anything with millet because it’s the favorite of alien-species house sparrows, which actively kill off all other songbirds around them and their eggs during nesting season.

But what I didn’t say was: simply by hanging up some sunflower, I get to see so many species.  But what’s so cool is that others who would never touch the stuff simply drop by to see what the fuss is about.  Some of those have stayed: the nuttall’s woodpecker got joined this year by a mate and I got to watch their mating ritual, a dance between the trees and around each other up and down and around almost as if they were carrying yarn and knitting stitches into the air; today, one was pounding away at my neighbor’s clothesline right after Neil left.

The whole cycle of life, right up close at my window. As Kathy said, one could never get bored.

p.s. And if sunflower is too pricey, a small $2 wire cage with a $2.00 to $2.50 suet cake lasts several weeks to a month here. The squirrels tend to ignore the ones that don’t have peanuts mixed in.

While I was pureeing strawberries today some beautiful, soft strawberry yarn appeared at my doorstep. With my thanks to Deb: a hank of Floating, from A Verb For Keeping Warm, a local dyer who uses only natural dyes; I’m curious to know if this was done in madder or cochineal, the two red sources they list. You can see how fast it got all wound up about it! (That’s an 11″ serving bowl, by the way.)

Sesame Street: “Do you know what’s going to happen next?” I am, sings Cat Stevens, on the road to find out. Follow the mellow brick, row’ed (or will be).

There was a speaker in church today who, from the heart, spoke of how Jesus had given up everything. Everything.  Had suffered everything. For us, so that if we would repent of that which separates us from God and come to Him and embrace Him, we too could be filled with the love He so freely offers to all. He knows each one of us personally.

Then he read the story of the rich young man who had come to Jesus seeking spiritual advice.

That was it. That was exactly what I needed to hear, boom, straight to my heart. My lingering inner question about a certain project I’d worked on…

All selfishness evaporated on the spot and I felt such a joy as I looked forward, at last, to giving that beautiful bit of knitting away. I knew exactly whom it would make quite happy.

And to think that before that point I had thought, not quite out loud to myself where I could hear it, that I somehow could do better with it myself than that?!

Someone on my high school’s page wrote about it last week. A few days ago, Deseret News did. I have no idea how the subject appeared in both places one after the other all these years later, but it was one of the funny parts of my growing up.

The Washington, DC Mormon Temple was built on a hill above a place where the DC Beltway takes a sharp curve: so that as you’re driving down the freeway at night, the hillside covered in woods remains dark, emphasizing this white, illuminated building with towering gold spires that seems to float in the air above you. The outer loop of the road bends away to the left just as it looks like you’re about to tunnel right under.

The place promptly got dubbed “Oz” among the locals.

So what came next was a total delight to everybody I know, at church, at school, you name it.

“Surrender Dorothy!” (Done in a carefully proper manner, with newspapers stuck in the chain link fence on the overpass, nothing harmed.)

That promptly got taken down by the authorities, of course, but then came another, although one that required too high a level of risk.

“Surrender Dorothy!”

(Hey, Karen, am I right in remembering a version on the sound wall too?)

And on a personal note, the landscape architect for the Temple needed a temporary home while the place was being built; my parents volunteered, and so a sweet old guy came to live with us for awhile. And (though it’s true I remember him from a young teenager’s perspective) I do mean old: come to find out he had known my father’s grandfather, and he was able to tell Dad about the grandpa he never knew.

Building a yellow brick road for us linking us to our ancestor as those daffodils went in.